Keeping It Together

So for a minute I thought that the train was going to run me over and grind my innards into a summer fruit slosh on the Ayala station tracks. But then Oliver grabbed my collar and pulled me back, and I'm reminded of that scene from Sassy Girl where the very drunk love interest is saved by the unassuming protagonist.

I don't want to ramble on and on. But I have to tell you that my life flashed before my eyes and it was a pretty boring show. If I could I would've channel surfed, or subscribed to a different cable provider. I'm regretting that I didn't live my life. And I mean LIVE like the way the boys in "Stand By Me" or the dimwitted beauties on "Temptation Island" circa 1980 film did.

"You all right?"

"Yeah," I said. It's a strange feeling to be looking at Oliver so closely. My recollection of him in college was this unflappable and gorgeous student who made being a genius in engineering equivalent to owning a car. And he owned a car. How uber-cool was that? Years later he's within breathing distance and I can barely feel my legs -- the skin on his face was luminous, his eyes evenly lashed, his bone structure was a candidate for the perfect symmetry test. He could blind me with all that beauty. I reached to touch my eyes and pretended there was something in them.

When he spoke again, there was a mini second delay from the time his mouth moved to the point where I heard his voice. Like a missing audio-video lock, video editors would say. "You should really be careful."

"Yeah." It was the only word in my vocabulary that moment. I wanted to run into the wall and smash my head to get the words out, pick them up like I would do to coins from a broken coin bank. See? I have pretty coins! I have sparkling wit!

"I gotta go. You sure you could find your way back? On your own?" he asked.

There really was no point to the question, I realize just now. He wanted me to go on my own because he didn't have time, the energy, or the emotional attachment, for him to accompany me to my house's doorstep. That's the problem with married guys.

"Yeah."

We waited for the next train to arrive, and when the doors opened, I managed to squeeze my way through the egressing mob and into the car. I heard the buzzer and the doors closed. Oliver had gone. I felt faint, but the pack of people held me up. I might have lost my cellphone which I put in my shoulder bag pocket, but I wasn't really up to protecting anything. All I focused on was getting home without falling apart.